Heaviness alone does not make a band metal. Public opinion plays no role in acceptance of bands.
Temple of The Dog were never here. Why are you complaining, when you are not able to comprehend the clear, written guidelines and are making stuff up? You did not even bother to look if the band is here or not...

First off - I'm not complaining. If *you* had bothered to read prior posts, you'd see that I don't really care - it's not my house, not my rules, and in the hand of someone else. As per TOTD, that was my mistake, I'm not "making things up" just to hurt your feelings and get you so defensive.

Back on POINT: However- bands like AIC and Soundgarden ARE included. To which, I personally feel are not as heavy as some of Slipknot or SOAD's material. But I guess that's no real "defense" when people can conveniently say "heaviness alone does not....blah blah blah".

No matter, as I said, it's still a cool site, and there's still a majority of the bands in my personal collection featured here. Cheers.

To the point - hardcore bands can be more aggressive than traditional metal ones, yet that still does not make them stylistically metal.
Nu-metal does not belong, it is explained in the rules.
We do not consider such bands to be metal.
My point was - why don't you people first read the guidelines:
http://www.metal-archives.com/guidelines.php
http://www.metal-archives.com/faq.php


or validate a certain band's presence before you post here?

AIC and Soundgarden are included for specific albums, not overall. How much a band is liked by the mods has no influence, there are many, many bands on here who wish they could sound as bad a Slipknot. Slipknot has loud distorted guitars, and fast drumming and screaming, all elements which can be used for metal, but they are also used in alt rock, hard rock, punk, grind and many other forms of non-metallic music, Nu metal is one of these forms of music. It evolved from the grunge, alt rock and hardcore scenes, and is made up of grunge, alt rock and hardcore elements, some of these elements can cross into metal, but overall the style is nothing like it besides a superficial title.

Which ones? I'm a Soundgarden fan and don't perceive a significant stylistic change throughout their career.

Heaviness and metal are not the same thing. There are some very light power and prog bands that are definitely metal and there are some insanly heavy and brutal grind bands that are not metal. It's about the composition, not the heaviness.

I think possibly the archives takes the hard rock/metal distinction too seriously. Nowadays, every rock band has some very specific genre that they fit into, from death metal to post grunge to ska punk or whatever (for the record i hate post grunge and don't listen to ska punk!). However, a few decades ago, bands just played "rock", and some of it is now thought of as metal. i think the archives should be less strict with what they define as metal. For instance, a band like AC/DC isn't thought of as metal at all, but a lot of bands have doubtlessly been influenced by them simply because they were so huge.
What I'm trying to say ius that there isn't really a strict definition of what metal itself is, it's only once we split it into subgenres like doom, power, gothic or whatever that it can be defined. Make sense?

I think some people misunderstand heaviness and being metal. Heavy, distorted guitars and aggressiveness =/= necessarily metal. Otherwise there'd be punk bands in here. To me, it's all about the riffs and to some extend, aesthetics. Super heavy and downtuned chugga-chugga breakdown riffs =/= metal riffs yet a lot of people misinterpret that for metal because "it's so obvious". If you listen to a breakdown, then to some riffs from any metal subgenre, you will hear some similarities between the metal subgenres and understand more where breakdowns are not metal, though it's quite hard to explain it.

The problem is, some people have the inability to separate Metal music and Good Aggressive music. They just have to see their favourite non-Metal band in the archives...

Well, breakdowns aren't inherently metal, but many genres of metal use breakdowns frequently, punk/hardcore influenced genres primarily. That can make things even more confusing.

a lot of stuff in music happens across genres, from power chords to indeed breakdowns. The metalness of these parts are determined by how and where they are used.

a lot of stuff in music happens across genres, from power chords to indeed breakdowns. The metalness of these parts are determined by how and where they are used.

Yeah, like there's thrash breakdowns which are very metal and deathcore breakdowns which often are not.

Explain how this makes any sense. A breakdown is a breakdown. They occur in all forms of music. They also come in different sounds. The "deathcore" breakdown, is really just stolen from slam brutal death metal, not hardcore, like so many seem to think. Hardcore breakdowns are much more energetic, upbeat. Slam death breakdowns are extremely slow, and often contain breakdowns WITHIN breakdowns, something that deathcore has inherited.

I still maintain my stance that deathcore = slam death metal + melodic metalcore. I've yet to see a convincing argument for anything else.

Despised Icon. No slam and no melodic metalcore.

To be honest I'm not really familiar with slam death metal, though I have yet to listen to any deathcore with any melodic sound. And riffs are riffs too, sounding different and all. It's just that most of the time we speak of breakdowns, we talk about deathcore breakdowns which have a more similar sound than not.

The deathcore breakdown is slightly different to a slam, admittedly it is the closest in sound though. It also has a lot similarities to the metalcore breakdown, the notes are spaced out more, in fact, periods of silence are quite common, it's an off time chug basically. Slams typically have a bit more of a wall of sound nature to them, they're not as spaced out with the notes typically flowing into a bit more. They still have the same dissonent qualities though.

i would say yes at most times it tries but "you can't please all the people all the time". some of the genres are overlapping but again i think they are mostly coming from a european standpoint and not really an american one. i could be wrong. early metal gets called but it was really just hard rock with more up front guitars. so everyone's definition of metal is different. black sabbath imo is not really metal until about the third or fourth album when tony began layering and piling on the guitars.
deep purple is not metal but they hold or did hold the record for being the loudest rock band in the guiness book of world records.

I think metal archives is about 80% right about what metal is. The policys here are a little too harsh on deathcore and glam metal in my opinion, but that doesn't really concern me much, since the key word here is "a little."
The major things about MA that bothers me is the exclusion of stoner rock and pre-Sabbath metal.
I've always been a strong supporter of the "Black Sabbath was the first metal band" stance, but I acknowledge that the genre developed and did not just spring from nothing. In my opinion, Led Zeppelin, Iron Butterfly and Blue Cheer are metal enough for the archives.

This site hosts Rush, various crust/punk bands, various non-metal grind bands, and a few other bands who really are debatable.

This site does not host/has rejected Parasite (Jpn), Praying Mantis (UK), among others that have all things considered been associated and sound metallic.

Some people consider bands like AC/DC and Kiss to be metal. I don't think they "sound" metal, but I feel they're historically significant enough to very much be included on a site like this. Most early metal heads have these guys to thank, so their impact is definitely there.

It's a good reference and resource, but really just leave it to your own interpretations.

I much prefer that the site doesn't include bands which were influencial or historically significant in the development. I mean, this is an archive of METAL bands, sure those bands are important, but if they're not actually metal themselves I don't see any reason for them to be here. Which is one of the reasons I don't like the side project rule, but thats not really a subject relevent to this thread.

The point is that we're discussing the guidelines, in part to the discussion. however - the question was not "do you understand the guidelines?" The question was "do you think MA defines metal?"

So in effect, we are discussing whether we AGREE with the guidelines (to an extent) or not.....but more importantly, what our personal ideas are about what makes a band metal. In my personal case - I happen to think that genres like grindcore and nu-metal BELONG here, because they are, for the most part - metal, imo. Whereas a band like Rush - I personally see ZERO merit in considering them metal. Cheers. I think when a lot of people say "heavy metal" they forgot the "heavy" aspect, and rather just leaned towards bands they personally enjoy.

Saying that grind is a genre of metal is factually incorrect though. That's one problem.

Just because one band doesn't adhere to the genre definitions doesn't mean that it is false. Despised Icon did many things different from most bands.

Indeed, that point of view is objectively wrong, in regards to the roots of grindcore and how it developed. In that aspect, the rule on grindcore is rather objective and reflects reality.

You know, I think a lot of it depends on how you are defining 'metal' in this context. If you mean music that is significantly metallic, it works one way, whereas it's another if you're thinking of music that is within or closely tied to the metal scene. I'm in the latter, the main way the site works is the former.

but it's metal archives, not heavy music archives. its a slippery slope. if you start letting in grindcore bands, you're gonna let in a lot of bands who are heavy but not metallic. then it might become crust bands, power violence bands, then fast hardcore bands, then you're just not in metal anymore..

Thrash breakdowns are like in agent orange around 2:46 iirc. They dont sound like deathcore or metalcore breakdowns. Also quite sure Biohazard created the modern hardcore/metalcore breakdown.

Thrash breakdowns are like in agent orange around 2:46 iirc. They dont sound like deathcore or metalcore breakdowns. Also quite sure Biohazard created the modern hardcore/metalcore breakdown.

I wouldn't say it defines metal, but it has a very good grasp on what counts as metal. I'd say I agree with it over 98% of the time.

I love this site, but disagree with some of the exclusions, as previously mentioned we have early alternative metal such as Alice in Chains, but no Tool or System of a Down. But if they were to include everything that someone has called metal, the archives would become cluttered with bullshit bands.

There are some things I take Metal Archive's word as the gospel on. There are other things where Im certain this entire forum is detatched from reality, too image centered, and doesnt collectively have a clue.


That being said, overall the people here are pretty bright and their definitions are pretty sysinct.

For me, yes, it really defines what metal is.

How do you deal when MA changes its opinion on the metalness of a certain band?

For example, were Between the Buried and Me albums metal while they were on the site, but stopped being so when they were removed?

That's the thing. As long as people who visit the website know that it's only MA's opinion, and doesn't claim to define what metal is, there's no problem. If people come here in search of bands in order to find out whether they are metal or not, and get angry about it when they don't (or do) find them here, they're looking in the wrong place.

In other words, it's A metal archive, not THE metal archives.

Actually on second thought I can accept AIC, Soundgarden and Faith No More here because they have one heavily metal influenced album each apparently...

As far as rejections go I think Great White should be here cos their self titled debut is more metal than anything else

Apart from that I think the archives is perfect

As far as borderline bands go, it's still possible that policies will change in the future. Scorpions weren't always here; I'm very glad that they are as some of their stuff is definitely metal. Recently, Fower Travellin' Band were removed, which I think is unfortunate. ANyway, the only thing to be said here is that metal-archives is a constantly shifting, evolving work in progress. If it ever stops being this, it won't be metal-archives anymore.

I didn't know until just now.

Oh well, I didn't consider them metal anyway, but I liked the music.

Time to change the title of the website, then.

But yeah, I agree. While MA does a pretty good job, it doesn't define metal, and it doesn't claim to. The fact that some bands have been removed, then added again, then removed again, and so on, proves this. If it's metal, it's metal regardless of it being on MA, and if it isn't, adding it here won't make it any more metal.

They were removed, because only the first song on Satori has some Sabbath riffing and only in places, not throughout the whole song. The rest of their material is not metal in any way and mostly not even hard rock. The just for explanation.